want to do is go home and soak them.”
“I have a perfectly good bathtub at my place. Also a fresh box of Epsom salts.”
“What kind of a guy keeps Epsom salts around?” she said in disbelief.
“You don’t have much experience with Jewish men, do you? Believe me, once you’ve gone Semite you’ll never go back.”
“So, what, you’re inviting me over?” she asked him shyly.
“I’ll make a fire. We’ll have a glass of wine. I’m harmless.”
“No way you’re harmless. But sure, why not?”
He waited for her to start up her Volkswagen Jetta before he pulled out of the lot and headed down Old Shore, Allison following a cautious distance behind him. When he pulled into the Peck’s Point Nature Preserve he flicked on his brights, startling three deer right there before him. They pranced off into the darkness and disappeared. At the end of the dirt road Mitch used his access card for the security gate. It lifted up and he went thumping and bumping slowly across the narrow quarter-mile-long wooden causeway out to the island, Allison tailing him as the gate lowered after her.
It was a good ten degrees colder out here than on shore. The light of the rising three-quarter moon shimmered on the calm waters of the Sound.
He opened the front door and flicked on a light. Allison followed him inside, looking very wide-eyed and uncertain. Clem-mie moseyed over to check her out. Decided she didn’t like the smell of her and darted upstairs to the sleeping loft. Mitch took off his jacket and started building a fire in the fireplace.
Allison stood there in her waitress uniform gazing around at the exposed chestnut beams, the pieces of found furniture, stacks of books, papers, DVDs. “This is not what I was expecting at all,” she told him, her voice hushed.
“You were expecting a mansion?”
“God, no, it’s just… it’s like a fantasy, you know?”
“I absolutely do.” Mitch lit a match to the crumpled newspaper under his kindling and took a bellows to it. Right away, the wood began to crackle. “Sometimes I look out the window and I can’t believe I’m living here.”
Her gaze fell on his Stratocaster. “Can you play me something?”
“I’m not that kind of guitar player.”
“What kind?”
“The kind who can play you something.” But he did pop Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush into his CD player and crank it up. “Have a seat in front of the fire, Allison. Wait, what am I saying? I really do have Epsom salts if you-.”
“Naw, I’m good right here.” She flopped her plump self down on his love seat, yanked off her sneakers and ankle socks and put her feet up on his coffee table, which he’d made himself by bolting a discarded storm window onto an old rowboat. Her bare legs seemed kind of stubby. Compared to Des, all women’s legs seemed stubby.
Mitch uncorked a bottle of Gabbiano in the kitchen and returned to the living room with it and two glasses. He filled them and handed her one. “I’m glad you could make it out, Allison.”
“Me, too.” She took a sip. “Hey, son, this is good wine. What is it?”
“A Chianti Classico.” He sat next to her on the love seat and patted his lap. “Park ’em here. Time for your massage.”
Allison narrowed her eyes at him. She wore altogether too much eye makeup, in his opinion. He wondered whether she’d look younger or older without it. “Mitch, are you the answer to my prayers or just a perv?”
“Does that matter?”
“Not really.” She swiveled around and plopped her pudgy feet in his lap. “I just don’t get why you’d want to.”
“Please don’t take this as a rebuke,” he said, kneading the ball of her left foot with his thumbs. “But I don’t think you’re accustomed to being treated very well.”
“Damn, I could get used to this in a hurry,” she groaned, squirming with animal pleasure. “Do all Jewish men do this or is it your own special thing?”
“I don’t like to brag, but I possess certain skills.”
“I guess our resident trooper would know about that.”
“That’s not fair, the way you keep mentioning her. I haven’t said anything about the Kershaws.”
“Kershaw,” she corrected him, gazing into the roaring fire. “I went out with Stevie for a while before he got sent up. He wrote me some letters from prison. When they got out, he wanted to get together. But it’s nothing serious between us. And I do not do both of them, if that’s what you were thinking. That would be skanky and disgusting. And, Mitch, my other foot is feeling really lonely over here.”
Mitch went to work on it. Allison let out a soft moan, grinding her hips into the sofa cushion.
“So you three didn’t spend the night together at the Yankee Doodle?”
“No, we did. I’m just saying that squirrely Donnie crashed in a chair, not in bed with us.” Allison glanced at him curiously. “Trooper Des thinks they did it, doesn’t she?”
“What do you think?”
“I can only go by what Stevie’s telling me, which is he really wants to clean up his act, get out of the old man’s house. He’d like to move in with me. I told him I’ve already got a nice, clean roommate who pays her rent on time. Besides, wherever Stevie goes Donnie goes. But I told him, hey, if you’re trying to stay straight I’m all for that. Not that I’ve made him any promises or whatever. I have to be kind of careful, because I have this habit of letting guys use me. You seem nice enough, and you sure have good hands. But tell me, Mitch, are you using me?”
Mitch gazed gloomily into the fire. “I sure hope not.”
“Wow, you sound bummed all of the sudden. How come?”
“I can’t stop thinking about my wife. I’ve started dreaming about her all over again, and it’s making me crazy.”
“She died, didn’t she? That’s why you moved here. You’re still hung up on her?”
“I can’t let go,” Mitch confessed, wondering why on earth he was sharing his most private feelings with Allison Mapes. Maybe it wasn’t so strange. He did need to talk it out with someone. Allison was here, and she did ask. “Maisie won’t let me go. In my dreams, I mean. I’m always leaving her, and she’s always begging me not to. I guess I’m feeling, deep down inside, that by being happy with someone else I’m abandoning her.”
“You’re not,” Allison said vehemently. “You’re just living your life, son. If you were moping around the house all day going boo-hoo then you’d be abandoning her. Because you’d be giving up. No way she’d want you to do that. Enjoy it while you can. That’s what I say. Not that I’m any kind of genius.”
He sipped his wine in brooding silence, staring into the fire. “It’s your life story, isn’t it? Justine’s book is about you.”
Allison totally freaked. Scrambled up off the love seat away from him. “Is that why you invited me out here?” she demanded, her eyes darting wildly about. “To talk about that?”
“I’m the one who’s been doing all of the talking. I’ve just confided something very personal to you. I’m hoping you’ll do the same for me.”
“Why should I?”
“Because a man is dead, Allison.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“This is what I’m trying to find out.”
She stared at Mitch in hurt, angry silence. “Justine told you?”
“Not a chance. She keeps trying to make me think it’s her story. I just didn’t buy it, that’s all.”
“Hey, thanks for the wine…” Allison snatched up her sneakers and jacket and fled for the door.
“Please don’t go, Allison. We have to talk about this. I’ll make it easier for you, okay? I already know that your older brother, Lester, was heavy into dope back in high school. I know he’s living in a VA hospital now, minus the limbs and genitalia that he left behind in Baghdad.”
“He got what was coming to him,” she said savagely.
“I know what’s in the book, okay? I know all of it.”
She let out a derisive snort. “You know jack.”
